Levels of care

Recent from the Newsroom

For More Updates

Your Support Matters

Body

Your gift of Ability impacts everything that we do every day at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. From high-quality clinical care and groundbreaking research to community programs that improve quality of life, philanthropic support drives our mission.

Center for Brain Stimulation (CBS)

Our Mission

Body

The Center for Brain Stimulation (CBS) is a joint research program between the AbilityLab and Northwestern University. Our goal is to improve the function and quality of life for individuals with neurological and/or psychiatric disorders by developing novel transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) techniques.

Our interdisciplinary team includes neuroscientists, physicians, psychologists, engineers, post-doctoral fellows, technicians, and students. With help from our patients, we focus on creating brain stimulation techniques that advance motor, sensory-perceptual, cognitive, and affective well-being.

CBS is a Northwestern University (NU) Core, meaning that its resources are available to academic investigators at Northwestern University and beyond. In addition to brain stimulation, we simultaneously record brain activity with electroencephalography (EEG) and/or functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to understand how brain connectivity changes as a result of TMS and to optimize our stimulation parameters.

Our state-of-the-art MRI-navigated multi-channel TMS system was built with a 2015 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Shared Instrumentation Grant. To cover our running costs, we receive funds from AbilityLab and the NU Core, as well as collect user fees. To see a full list of our state-of-the art instrumentation, click the "Projects/Resources at CBS" link.

We also arrange brain stimulation safety training (TMS 1-Day Basic Safety Course) 3 times a year for all area investigators and clinicians interested in learning how to apply TMS safely and efficiently. Please email cbs@sralab.org to ask about timing of the next course.

If you are interested in learning more or donating to keep us running, please contact the CBS Director Tommi Raij.

Projects - Clinical Research

Body

Treatment atlases for brain stimulation. This research project aims at computing maps that indicate which brain areas and networks should be stimulated for best therapeutic efficacy. Principal Investigators: Tommi Raij (AbilityLab/NU), Aapo Nummenmaa (MGH/Harvard Medical School)